{"id":14353,"date":"2020-12-03T15:13:14","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T20:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/?p=14353"},"modified":"2020-12-04T11:37:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T16:37:12","slug":"the-south-philadelphia-sugar-refinery-riot-of-1917","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2020\/12\/the-south-philadelphia-sugar-refinery-riot-of-1917\/","title":{"rendered":"The South Philadelphia Sugar Refinery Riot of 1917"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

More than 2000 workers from the Franklin Refining Company and the William J. McCahan Sugar Refinery went out on strike in late January 1917. Their demands? Ten cents more per hour, double pay for overtime and Sundays off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food shortages and steeply rising food prices stretched striking families to the point of starvation. Beef and chicken were now entirely out of reach. Potatoes, cabbage, spinach and parsnips weren\u2019t far behind. Onions recently selling at 2 1\/2 cents a pound now cost fourteen cents. The \u201cwives of strikers, who had accumulated small savings before the walkout, declared the food prices were so high that their funds had been quickly exhausted.\u201d What would the strikers do? What could<\/em> they do? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a month of picketing, the sugar refinery district on the Delaware waterfront, Reed to Morris Streets, was about to become a battlefield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/a>
American Sugar Refinery, Sugar Warehouse, Northeast Corner Delaware Avenue (Christopher Columbus Boulevard) and Reed Street, December 19, 1913 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Up in New York, the housewives of the Lower East Side, who were not in the midst of a prolonged strike, had declared a food boycott. On Monday and Tuesday February 19th<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> they vandalized pushcarts and grocery stores and marched in protest to New York City Hall. When the women of South Philadelphia heard that New Yorkers were chanting “Give us bread!” in English and Yiddish, and marching as they cried out \u201cWe are starving! Feed our children!\u201d they, too, were ready to consider any and all options. South Philadelphians declared solidarity with the New Yorkers, agreeing to a vendor boycott. They called it a \u201cfood strike.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/a>
Delaware Avenue (Christopher Columbus Boulevard) North of Reed Street, East Side, December 29, 1913 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Many of the wives and female relatives of the refinery strikers were eager for even more of a demonstration. On Wednesday February 21, about two hundred women met a few blocks from the sugar refinery district at Lithuanian Hall, Moyamensing Avenue and Christian Street. Another one hundred gathered at Fourth and Wharton streets. As far as the police were concerned, the purpose of these and other meetings was to plan a march on City Hall, similar to the New York protest. Something happened to the women inside Lithuanian Hall that day. \u201cOne after another got up and told of the suffering in her home from lack of food.\u201d Police later claimed they had been stirred into a \u201cfrenzy by the preachings of representatives of the Industrial Workers of the World.\u201d Possibly so. They were also moved by the words of South Philadelphia\u2019s homegrown activists. Baby in arms, the 32-year-old Florence Shadle of 110 Wharton Street \u201cinsisted that the strike was driving the families of the locked-out men to the verge of starvation.\u201d She urged those gathered “to adopt militant methods to drive out the strike-breakers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after 5pm, about forty of the women left Lithuanian Hall singing and chanting \u201cWe want food!\u201d With babies on their hips, or trundling them in carriages or holding their hands, they marched to Front and Reed streets. Some, according to police, came armed with pepper shakers. As they passed the Fire Engine Company #46<\/a> at Ostego and Reed streets, protesters traded insults with mounted police. The women showered the policemen and their horses with red pepper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/a>
North Side Reed Street – West from Delaware Avenue (Christopher Columbus Boulevard), December 19, 1913, (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSinging labor songs\u201d and \u201cyelling for food,\u201d marchers from both of the meetings converged on the refineries. Police reinforcements arrived, increasing their number to 250. As if on cue, just as the police tried to disperse the protesters, many more \u201cwomen, men and children appeared suddenly from all sides.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crowd of protesters swelled to 2,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201clack of food and money\u201d had transformed the strikers and their supporters \u201cfrom peaceful workers and citizens into savage fighters,\u201d observed the Inquirer.<\/em> A truck used to shuttle strike-breakers between the refineries and their homes returned, adding \u201cfuel to the fire of riot.\u201d The protesters were ready to battle \u201cthe bluecoats with a strength born of despair.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom somewhere came the report of revolver shots. Bullets whizzed by the heads of the policeman as they crouched in the patrol wagons. There came another shower of shot, followed by bricks and other missiles,\u201d debris from a nearby demolition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPoliceman charged the rioters with drawn revolvers, firing volley after volley into their ranks and getting in return a shower of bullets, bricks and stones.\u201d From windows and housetops during the height of the battle, snipers fired down on the struggling mass in the street, hitting friend and foe alike with bullets and other missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany of the women, children, and men were badly bruised by the clubs of the police\u201d who showed\u201d no mercy and struck at all who came within their reach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officers attempted \u201cto round the rioters into a huge circle.\u201d Then \u201cthey fired their revolvers straight at the mob which, in its collective fury, charged the police.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle lasted nearly two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This<\/a>
Where police found the bullet-ridden, trampled body of Martin Petkewicz after the riot. Northeast Corner of Front and Reed Streets, March 19, 1915 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne man was killed, four others, including two policemen, probably fatally injured, 10 more seriously hurt and scores bruised and cut last evening,\u201d reported the Inquirer<\/em> the next morning. It was \u201cthe most desperate and bloody riot which has occurred in Philadelphia for years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reported fatality, Martin Petkewicz, a 30-year old from the 100 block of Tasker Street, had recently joined the Industrial Workers of the World. He was reportedly \u201cshot through the heart and killed as he stooped over to pick up a brick.\u201d After the fighting had subsided, police found Petkewicz\u2019s body \u201cat the intersection of Front and Reed streets, bruised and battered by the hundreds of feet which had trampled on it while the fight was on.\u201d Days later, several thousand fellow strikers followed his funeral cortege as it made its way through blocks of rowhouses to Saint Casmir\u2019s on Wharton Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a hastily organized meeting\u201d called immediately after the riot, “several hundred women assembled in a synagogue at Sixth and Sigel streets.\u201d Pauline Goldberg, of 449 Durfor Street, urged everyone to focus on the issue they all shared: the exorbitant price of food. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur children and our husbands are not getting enough to eat,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we have potatoes and onions and a little barley, we can do without meat forever, but with potatoes at seven cents a pound where they used to be two and three cents and onions at sixteen cents when they used to be five and six cents, we cannot live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDrastic measures would have to be taken to bring down the price of the two staple articles of their diet,\u201d Goldberg urged.\u201d It\u2019s up to us to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what? What would<\/em> the women of South Philadelphia do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Sources: \u201cSugar Prices Soar as Strike Goes On,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, February 13, 1917; \u201cVegetables Have Soared to Unprecedented Mark,\u201d Evening Public Ledger<\/em>, February 21, 1917; \u201cFood Riots Sweep Through New York, Ghetto to Harlem,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, February 21, 1917; \u201c1 Killed, 14 Hurt, When Hungry Mob Fights Policemen \u2013 Wives of Sugar Refinery Strikers Lead Attack; 4 More May Die,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, February 22, 1917; \u201cPolice Slay Mob Chief in Sugar Strike \u2013 Thirty Hurt When Woman with Baby Leads Refinery Men,\u201d Evening Public Ledger<\/em>, February 22, 1917; \u201cAttacks on Police Renewed; Striker Shot During Clash,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, February 23, 1917; \u201cWar prosperity and hunger: The New York food riots of 1917,\u201d William Frieburger, Labor History<\/em>, March 1984, Vol. 25, No. 2.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 2000 workers from the Franklin Refining Company and the William J. McCahan Sugar Refinery went out on strike in late January 1917. Their demands? Ten cents more per hour, double pay for overtime and Sundays off. Food shortages and steeply rising food prices stretched striking families to the point of starvation. Beef and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}